Our Disappeared/Nuestros Desaparecidos is a filmmaker’s personal search for the souls of friends who disappeared in Argentina during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship. The principal narrator is the filmmaker himself, Juan Mandelbaum, who returns to trace the fate of five friends. The pain of their absence and the lack of justice for many of the perpetrators continue to haunt the country. Each story shows different aspects of the horrors that befell them. The film also focuses on these young people’s dreams for a better society before they were taken away, and on the legacies that live on through their now grown surviving children. They show that there is hope even after such an enormous tragedy.

ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS+

PRODUCTION CREDITS

Juan Mandelbaum
Writer/Producer/Director

Juan Mandelbaum has been recognized as a documentary filmmaker, and has also worked as teacher, curator and consultant. He is President and Creative Director of GEOVISION, a Massachusetts multicultural communications agency.

Juan’s work has been broadcast on a variety of venues, from AMERICAN PLAYHOUSE to SESAME STREET, and has won multiple awards, including EMMY awards and nominations, CINE Golden Eagles, GABRIEL awards, CHRIS award, and SILVER APPLE award. Juan was a producer/director at WGBH-Boston on Americas, a 10-part series on Latin America and the Caribbean for PBS and Channel 4-UK, for which he co-produced In Women’s Hands and produced Builders of Images.

Juan’s independent productions have been aired on PBS and in many festivals and are in worldwide distribution. His films have received grants and funding from the Sundance Institute, ITVS, Latino Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Arts/Massachusetts Cultural Council. These include Caetano in Bahia, Ringl and Pit, A New World of Music, and the Poetry Heaven series, on The Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival.

Juan has served as reader and panelist for the Independent Television Service (ITVS), Latino Public Broadcasting, Massachusetts Cultural Council, New Hampshire Council on the Arts and the New England Film and Video Festival.

Juan studied sociology in his native Argentina, and worked as a journalist, photographer and educator until he left for the US in 1977 to leave behind the military dictatorship. He holds an MA in Communications from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, which in 1998 gave him the Merrill Panitt Citizenship Award, given every year to a distinguished alumnus. Juan is past president of International Film Seminars, organizers of the Flaherty Film Seminars.

Our Disappeared/Nuestros Desaparecidos is a co-production of GEOVISION, Inc. and The Independent Television Service (ITVS), in association with Latino Public Broadcasting (LPB) with funding provided by The Corporation For Public Broadcasting.

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About Us

Latino Public Broadcasting is the leader of the development, production, acquisition and distribution of non-commercial educational and cultural media that is representative of Latino people, or addresses issues of particular interest to Latino Americans. These programs are produced for dissemination to the public broadcasting stations and other public telecommunication entities. LPB provides a voice to the diverse Latino community on public media throughout the United States.